


Back To That Moment

by afteriwake



Series: What Happens In The Aftermath [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Comforting Sherlock, Couch Cuddles, Established Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Flashbacks, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Mail Order Brides, Molly Hooper Needs a Hug, Molly Hooper has PTSD, POV Molly Hooper, Poor Molly, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, Sherlock To The Rescue, Sherlock is a Good Boyfriend, crying Molly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 11:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10570272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: After hearing a domestic dispute outside her bedroom window, Molly starts to flash back to her own attack, but is able to pull herself out of it before it gets too bad. Afterward, Sherlock tells her something surprising that makes her feel better about her progress in dealing with her attack.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt (" _Molly has a flashback during a date with Sherlock and he eases her out of it_ ") was picked by **a_dark_day** for Molly Madness Month. It's a bit of a darker thing than I normally write, though that's part of the series, in that this is after Molly has gone through a traumatic experience and trying to date Sherlock, but hopefully it isn't _too_ dark.

She was rather excited for this date. It was their third because she absolutely counted the lunch Sherlock took her to two days after their botched first date a date, and it was a chance to be impressed all over again. Perhaps she was okay. Perhaps she could resume living a normal life again, go out and have a social life, live without being so timid…

That would be lovely.

She’d just finished getting her makeup done when she heard shouting outside her window. Her bedroom faced the street and usually this area of London was rather quiet. But her new neighbors had not exactly been the most friendly sort. The husband was a brute and she was fairly sure he was abusive towards his girlfriend. At the very least, he was controlling. 

The shouting grew louder and then she heard it through her open window, the unmistakeable sound of fists hitting a human body. She could hear a woman whimper and she knew she should go out and intervene, try and get the woman into the safety of her home, behind the doors that were now reinforced with steel thanks to an upgrade from Mycroft and that she could lock with two deadbolts and a lock that even Sherlock could no longer break through, but she was frozen as her mind flashed back to her own beating. She could feel the fists on her, hear the sound of Arthur’s fists against her skin, hear him yell at her…

Soon, though, she heard another voice, a familiar voice. She heard Sherlock’s crisp baritone through the fray outside, and then there was a grunt and silence. A few moments later there was harried knocking on her door. “Molly,” he called out.

It took all her strength to uproot herself from the spot near her bedroom window, but she managed to make herself move to the door and open it. Sherlock stood there sans Belstaff, which was wrapped around her neighbor’s girlfriend. She could see the woman had a cut lip and she was going to have a black eye and she was barely dressed. “Let me take care of you,” she said, using the necessity of caring for someone else to keep from falling to pieces. Her therapist would be quite proud of her at her session next week.

Sherlock arranged for Lestrade to handle this even though it wasn’t his normal type of case while Molly tended to the woman, whose name was Lucinda. It turned out she barely spoke any English and through Sherlock’s knowledge of Russian, they learned she had been sent to the country to be a bride, though that was not at all what had happened. Today she had tried to escape but failed.

Molly pushed everything down as she and Sherlock handed her off to Lestrade and Donovan and a translator, who promised they would take good care of her. Molly sent along a change of clothes she thought would fit so that Lucinda would have comfortable clothes to wear and not hospital scrubs or anything marking her as a prisoner. She deserved some dignity after all she’d been through. She deserved to be treated like a human being.

When they were alone again, Molly curled up in her favorite chair, chewing on her bottom lip. Everything she had pushed down came bubbling up to the surface. Not the panic; she was thankful she was managing to avoid a panic attack, but she started to shake and cry. Sherlock was in front of her in seconds, grasping her hands in his. “It’s alright,” he said, rubbing his thumbs on her knuckles.

“She...she was trapped,” Molly said. “She was trapped and he _brutallized_ her when she tried to escape! He could have killed her!” She gasped for a breath. “She thought he was a good man, a caring man, and he was a monster. How...how many men...” She shook her head. “How many monsters are in the world?”

“Too many,” he said. “And too many of them hurt far too many people. But there are brave women like Lucinda who fight back.” He hesitantly raised one of her hands up and kissed it. “Like you.”

“I didn’t--” she said, shaking her head.

“Not when you were abducted, not when you were beaten, but now. You fight back by trying to live a normal life. You don’t let what that bastard did stop you from living your life. And that is its own type of bravery, one I admire greatly.”

Molly slid out of the chair and then hugged him tightly, sobbing into his shoulder. She needed to hear words like that. She might not always believe they were true, but if he believed she was brave, she could be braver. She could try hard to live her life. And knowing that he admired her bravery of living her life made her feel more towards him than she ever had before.

After a little while, she pulled away just slightly, nestling herself in his arms and resting her forehead in the crook of his neck. “Can we stay in tonight, Sherlock? Get takeaway and watch a DVD?”

He nodded, shifting to a slightly more comfortable position. “A date in sounds like a good idea. There will always be more opportunities to make up our first date.”

“You don’t need to,” she said. “Lunch was enough.”

“But I want to,” he said. “For someone I admire, I want to impress her.”

She smiled against his neck and then lifted her head up to look at him. “Don’t worry, Sherlock. You’ve done that well enough.” And then she lowered her head back down and shut her eyes, content to stay just like this for a little while, feeling content and safe and happy again, and ready to take on anything all over again.


End file.
